AKIPRESS.COM - Charlie Hebdo cartoonist "Luz" who designed the magazine's cover image of Muhammad after the Paris attacks has said he is leaving the publication.

Renald Luzier told the French newspaper Liberation that his job had become "too much to bear" following the deaths of his colleagues, reports AFP.

Twelve people were murdered when two Islamist gunmen burst into the Charlie Hebdo offices on 7 January.

"Each issue is torture because the others are gone," said Luz.

He joined the publication in 1992 and said his resignation was "a very personal choice". He will leave in September.

"Spending sleepless nights summoning the dead, wondering what Charb, Cabu, Honore, Tignous would have done is exhausting," he added.